A fortune in foreign silver
In 1971, near the village of Radovanu in southern Romania, a remarkable discovery was made: a locally-made Geto-Dacian pottery vessel filled with silver coins. This wasn't local currency. Inside the pot were 1,500 silver coins—tetradrachms and drachms—minted in the powerful centers of the Hellenistic world. The burial of this treasure is dated to the early 3rd century BCE, a period when the local Geto-Dacian tribes, a northern Thracian people, were in frequent contact with the Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast and the Macedonian kingdom to the south.
The hoard provides a detailed record of the international currency circulating north of the Danube river. Numismatic analysis identifies coins issued under the authority of powerful Greek rulers. The collection includes silver pieces bearing the name and likeness of Alexander the Great, Philip III Arrhidaeus, the Diadochi Lysimachus, and Demetrius Poliorcetes. These coins originated from a wide geographical area, with mints located in cities from Macedonia to Asia Minor and even as far as Mesopotamia. The presence of such a large volume of high-value foreign currency suggests it belonged to a powerful local chieftain.